U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [539]
Suddenly there he was coming down the gangplank
alone, with the old wicker suitcase in his hand. He had on a new belted German raincoat but the same checked cap. She was face to face with him. He gave her a little hug but he didn't kiss her. There was something odd in his voice. "Hel o, Mary . . . I didn't expect to find you here. . . . I don't want to be noticed, you know." His voice had a low furtive sound in her ears. He was ner-vously changing his suitcase from one hand to the other.
"See you in a few days . . . I'm going to be pretty busy." She turned without a word and ran down the wharf. She hurried breathless along the crosstown street to the Ninth Avenue el. When she opened her door the new turkeyred curtains were like a blow from a whip in her face.
She couldn't go back to the office. She couldn't bear the thought of facing the boys and the people she knew, the people who had known them together. She cal ed up and
-547-said she had a bad case of grippe and would have to stay in bed a couple of days. She stayed al day in the blank misery of the narrow rooms. Towards evening she dozed off to sleep on the couch. She woke up with a start thinking she heard a step in the hal outside. It wasn't Don, the steps went on up the next flight. After that she didn't sleep any more.
The next morning the phone woke her just when she
settled herself in bed to drowse a little. It was Sylvia Goldsteinsaying she was sorry Mary had the grippe and asking if there was anything she could do. Oh, no, she was fine, she was just going to stay in bed al day, Mary answered in a dead voice. "Wel , I suppose you knew al the time about Comrade Stevens and Comrade Lichfield
. . . you two were always so close . . . they were mar-ried in Moscow . . . she's an English comrade . . . she spoke at the big meeting at the Bronx Casino last night
. . . she's got a great shock of red hair . . . stunning but some of the girls think it's dyed. Lots of the comrades didn't know you and Comrade Stevens had broken up
. . . isn't it sad things like that have to happen in the movement?" "Oh, that was a long time ago. . . . Goodby, Sylvia," said Mary harshly and hung up. She cal ed up a bootlegger she knew and told him to send her up a bottle of gin.
The next afternoon there was a light rap on the door and when Mary opened it a crack there was Ada wreathed in silver fox and breathing out a great gust of Forêt Vierge. "Oh, Mary darling, I knew something was the matter. . . . You know sometimes I'm quite psychic. And when you didn't come to my concert, first I was mad but then I said to myself I know the poor darling's sick. So I just went right down to your office. There was the hand-somest boy there and I just made him tel me where you lived. He said you were sick with the grippe and so I came
-548-right over. My dear, why aren't you in bed? You look a sight."
"I'm al right," mumbled Mary numbly, pushing the stringy hair off her face. "I been . . . making plans . . . about how we can handle this relief situation better."
"Wel , you're just coming up right away to my spare bedroom and let me pet you up a little. . . . I don't be-lieve it's grippe, I think it's overwork. . . . If you're not careful you'l be having a nervous breakdown." "Maybe sumpen like that." Mary couldn't articulate her words. She didn't seem to have any wil of her own any more; she did everything Ada told her. When she was settled in Ada's clean lavendersmel ing spare bed they sent out for some barbital and it put her to sleep. Mary stayed there several days eating the meals Ada's maid brought her, drinking al the drinks Ada would give her, listening to the continual scrape of violin practice that came from the other room al morning. But at night she couldn't sleep without fil ing herself up with dope. She didn't seem to have any wil left. It would take her a half an hour to decide to get up to go to the toilet. After she'd been at Ada's a week she began to feel she ought to go home. She began to be impatient of Ada's sly references to unhappy loveaffairs and broken hearts and the beauty of abnegation and would snap Ada's head off whenever she started it. "That's fine," Ada would say.